17

The ‘Abd al-Wādids or Zayyānids or Ziyānids

633–962/1236–1555

Western Algeria

The ‘Abd al-Wādids or Zayyānids or Ziyānids were originally from the Wāsīn tribe of Zanāta Berbers, hence kin to the Marīnids (see above, no. 16). They rose to prominence in what is now north-western Algeria through their support to the Almohads, so that their chief, Yaghmurāsan (? Yaghamrāsan), was able to found a principality of his own based on Tlemcen (Tilimsān). The decay of his Almohad suzerains left him exposed to attack by the Marīnids of Fez, and after his death the latter were twice to occupy Tlemcen. The ‘Abd al-Wādid princes endeavoured to stem Marīnid ambitions against Tlemcen through alliances with Christian Castile and the Naṣrids of Granada (see above, no. 7), common foes of the Marīnids, although, having inherited lands which had been devastated by the incoming nomadic Arabs of the Banū Hilāl and Banū Sulaym, their economic and military resources were limited. The only direction in which the ‘Abd al-Wādids could themselves contemplate expansion was eastwards, although their raids here were generally checked by the Ḥafṣids (see below, no. 18). The ‘Abd al-Wādid principality never fully recovered from the Marīnid occupations, although the decline of the Marīnid rulers of Fez and their replacement by the less formidably aggressive Waṭṭāsids (see below, no. 19) relieved pressure from the direction of Morocco. It was the Ḥafṣids who were the main threat to Tlemcen in the fifteenth century, at one point successfully attacking the town and imposing vassal ‘Abd al-Wādid princes on the throne there; but this threat was succeeded in the sixteenth century by ones from the Spaniards in Oran and the Turkish pashas in Algiers, and it was from the pressure of these last two powers that the ‘Abd al-Wādids finally succumbed in 962/1555, the son of the last ruler, al-Ḥasan, becoming a Christian convert under the name of Carlos.

Tlemcen owed much of its mediaeval florescence and splendour to the ‘Abd al-Wādids. It lay on the main east-west route through Algeria to Morocco, with a caravan route southwards to the Sahara and with its own port at nearby Hunayn, which traded with the Christian powers of the western Mediterranean. The fine public buildings of Tlemcen attest the encouragement of learning and enlightened patronage of its princes.

Lane-Poole, 51, 54; Sachau, 25 no. 57; Zambaur, 77–8; Album, 17.

EI¹ ‘Tlemcen’ (A. Bel); EI² ‘Abd al-Wādids’ (G. Marçais).

H. W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa, 75–9, 181–92, 274–5, 284.